Wooden box...

Several years ago my mother gave me a Christmas gift wrapped in a rather large plastic candy cane. Every year for the last several years that candy cane has gone back and forth between the two of us.

After we finished opening Christmas gifts last year, my brother suggested that he and I should start a similar tradition. Given that we’re both just getting into woodworking, I suggested that rather than handing the same thing back and forth every year we should take turns making a box. One year I’ll make a box for him. The next he’ll make a box for me. The idea being that gradually the boxes will get better and better.

I volunteered to go first. This is the first box I’ve ever made. Not exactly an jaw dropping project, but at least it turned out alright. My wife picked out the marbled wood. I decided to contrast that with hard maple for the edges. I don’t really know the exact dimensions of the box. I can’t remember exactly how many times I had to trim the edges in order to get things to line up correctly.

I finished it with a satin wipe on poly. I actually intended to use a gloss wipe on poly. I had the satin left over from another project and grabbed the wrong one. Oh well. I suppose I could have sanded the finish off after the first coat…

It is my first box. Although I haven’t actually done much woodworking, I’ve done an awful lot of reading about it. It turns out that reading about woodworking is a heck of a lot cheaper than actually doing it.